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Thursday, November 21, 2013

I had a manager
once who was a big advocate of journaling. Not just personal diarising,
but writing about your professional life. She believed it helped relieve
stress, organize your thoughts and aided problem solving. She also used
to tell me that it was a great way to find out more about yourself.

I
think she was right. The more I blog, the more insight I gain into the
type of person that I am. When I read things I have written, things
about my personality become clearer - what is important to me, what I
believe in, things I'm passionate about.

Recently,
I learned that there is a blogging conference happening next year that
is taking place on a cruise ship. My heart leapt. Two of my favorite
things! Blogging and big ships! But then I realized there is no real way
I could afford to go, unless I got a sponsor, or earned enough from
this blog to pay for it.

I
briefly toyed with the idea of monetizing this blog but after googling a
bit I quickly lost interest. There's a reason you don't see any
advertising or sponsored posts on here. It's because I'm fundamentally
lazy. I don't even keep an editorial calendar (I've heard that's a
thing) - how could I organize myself enough to attract advertisers or
put brand pitches together? Ha ha. I just don't have enough interest in
it to make much of effort. A bit like my relationship with housework
actually.

That
doesn't mean I couldn't. Money IS a pretty good motivator. And it
doesn't mean I'm not going to monetize or open up the blog for paid
content in future. It just means I've learnt enough about myself through
blogging the last few years to realize I'm no go-getter. I'm a
Slow Blogger.

I'll continue to write a about things if and when the feeling grabs me. Because that's how I roll... For now, anyway!

Saturday, November 16, 2013

If you're like me and have a black thumb when it comes to plants, growing your own herbs is something that you may struggle with.

So when you do buy fresh bunches from the shop for whatever ambitious cooking endeavour you're embarking on, what do you do with all the leftover?

Well, you make herb butter.

This is an old frugality chestnut, but I recently saw it on Save With Jamie. I had some flat-leafed parsley left over and it was rapidly wilting in its little plastic container, so I thought I'd give herb butter a go.

The method is pretty simple. Get a big block of butter. Leave it on the bench for a while while you have a cup of tea and a sit-down.

Come back and finely chop your leftover herbs. I'm assured you can use any you like. I used my mezzaluna because I have hopeless knife skills (and also it's fun!).

Put the herbs in a bowl with the soft butter and mix it all up.

Spoon onto some baking paper and mush it into a little log. Wrap it up and twist the ends. Put in freezer.

Here's the important bit: remember it's in there! Take it out to spread on crusty bread for soups, on top of steak or whatever you fancy. You could also add some garlic to make it even more awesome.

Fighting Food Waste will hopefully be a series here at Surely Sarah, feel free to tell me your tips!

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Last Saturday was the 2013 Garage Sale Trail. It's the third year it's been held and my first time! Hard to believe I know, but for some reason this regular opshopper had never checked it out before.

The idea of the Garage Sale Trail is to organise folk around Australia to hold garage sales on the same day, with the goals of sustainability, growing community and helping money change hands for people and charities.

With the help of the interactive map on the website (which displayed sales in your area that people or organisations had registered and enabled you to create your own "treasure trail", so handy!) and the mobile app, off I went with a purse full of change and high hopes.

Unfortunately I completely bombed out! I think I was too late, as you may know, the early bird gets the worm. But this little worm had a sleep-in.

Nevertheless, I had fun poking about in other people's stuff, and you never know what gems you are going to find.

At the end of the day, the Garage Sale trail had over 13,000 sellers registered across the country, 1.5m items listed for sale and they project over $4.5m will flow into the local economy as a result of the day. That's pretty amazing stuff.

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Welcome to Surely Sarah

Hi, I'm Sarah! I'm 33 and searching for my passion.
Until then, I slog away in a cubicle working full-time and focus on enjoying my downtime with things like TV (my old friend), movies, twitter, (trying to) cook, reading and hanging out with my hubby. My head is turned by things like vintage homewares, stationery, chocolate and scrapbooking. I blog about whatever takes my fancy.